Electronic Structure and the Properties of Solids: The Physics of the Chemical Bond (Dover Books on Physics)

Old edition printing is better.

Book was in very good shape. Author does decent job of balancing the "why" and the "how". Math is summarized rather than illuminating.

Just read the first chapter, feel like this is the book I want, for a physics graduate student. Well explained.

The idea behind this book is that a beginning graduate student can do approximate electronic structure calculations, solving nothing more than the quadratic equation, with the approximations provided. The approximate models are said to aid understanding and train intuition. It's a nice idea, but given the easy accessibility to electronic structure codes and powerful computers these days, it's antiquated: ones first approach would instead be to calculate! Worse, the pedagogical style in the book is such that it doesn't really train intuition either. I spent a lot of time trying to understand this book and I can't say that my effort was rewarded. Positive features: scope, historical interest, and low price from Dover.

As a scientist who went thru the rigors of getting a PhD in an American public university, I have noticed many subtle but inefficient practices. One of the worst goes as follows. A certain promising doctoral student starts on his (or her) research. His advisor hands him a classic text to read. Said text is nigh incomprehensible, but our prodigal student endeavors and comes to gradually understand the text and apply it to his studies. He graduates, begins his career and eventually gets that tenured position. Years later when he supervises his first graduate student, he imparts said text upon a new sufferer and the process begins anew. This book by W. A. Harrison is such a text. It is extremely hard to read, the words are small, there are few images or graphs or plots, and the examples are not geared for the computer age. But, because this book came out when solid state simulations began to spread in use and multiple free codes came about, it was read and used by many scientists and apprentices. Nowadays, there are dozens of much better books that are much easier to read and understand. Yet I still encounter this text being used. Why? Because many academics fought thru it, are proud of the feat, and somehow intend their trainees to do the same.I read this book after reading thru over a dozen other books in the same subject, and found this to be the hardest and least understandable. This book is often considered the Bible of electronic structure simulations. This is a correct statement in the worst sense possible because the number of people who understand the Bible is much less than those who swear by it; i.e. very similar to this book. Overall, I do not recommend buying it or reading it. Its only redeeming quality is the exhaustive number of equations.

This book has no parallel in the literature of theoretical materials science. The information contained in the book allows first principle calculations of properties of important technological materials like perovskite oxides, semiconductors, etc. I would suggest the reader to consult the papers by R. Haydock and others in Solid State Physics, vol.35 of 1980 tocomplemment the methods presented in the book.

The text provide a simplified view on many fundamental aspects of solid state physics. There are two things I love particularly:1) The book is self-sufficient even for a reader with a very basic knowledge of quantum mechanics.2) Much like Feynman's style of presentation.I would definitely consider it as a "must" part of the Solid State Physics course.

Unlike what amazon.ca claims a new book, the one I received is in a bad shape: worn-out spine, broken curved edges and dirty black corner. It is by no means a new book. Although I can return it to amazon.ca, I still feel frustrated because I've spent time to pick it up and then have to spend time again to return it.

I found this very hard to follow and gave up half way through. Not as good as Kittel's book on solid state physics.

If you want to learn molecular orbital theory you gotta read this.

物理は数学を多用するものと勘違いしている人はこの本を読むべき。丁寧な言葉での解説をずっしりと載せているので、英語の勉強にもなるし、化学物理の本質が解る事だろう。邦訳版もあるが、大学院生向けの本と言えるので洋書として読んだ方が将来の為にもなると思う。値段も洋書にしては低価格。一年あれば通読できるであろう。物性の本は相性があるが、数学に自信が無い人は大変お勧めの本であると言える。